Lage Landen Studies is de reeks van de Internationale Vereniging voor Neerlandistiek. In de serie worden monografieën en thematische bundels uitgegeven als resultaat van zowel individuele studies als van samenwerking tussen wetenschappers die werkzaam zijn op het gebied van de neerlandistiek. De reeks bevordert bestudering van de Nederlandse taal alsook literatuur en cultuur van de Lage Landen in internationaal perspectief. De redactie streeft naar twee afleveringen per jaar.

Since the early 70's quite a lot of attention has been paid to the forms andfunctions of prosody in discourse. This paper first reviews some key issuesregarding the phonetic, phonological and functional aspects of the suprasegmentalfeatures of speech. It then gives an overview of the prosody of Frenchand Dutch. Although more research is needed, this contrastive analysis provides abetter understanding of the prosodic structure of the two languages.

In this contribution we show that foreign language acquisition research does not only provide theoretical insights into the learning process of foreign languages, but also provides useful tips that are directly relevant to language teaching, especially if research is conducted with the 'integrated contrastive model'. We illustrate how the model can be applied in studies of the interlanguage of French-speaking learners of Dutch and Dutch learners of French concentrating on the phonological, morphological and pragmatic components of language. Finally, we explore possible classroom teaching activities and techniques that follow from our study.

The study of pronunciation (especially prosody) has often been marginalized within the field of applied linguistics. As a result, teachers are often left to rely on their own intuitions and/or tend to neglect pronunciation in their teaching practice. This article shows that applied linguistic research on interlanguage phonology and foreign accent has much to offer to second/foreign language teachers in terms of helping them to set learning goals, identifying appropriate pedagogical priorities for the classroom, and determining the most effective approaches to teaching. After a brief review of the literature on the acquisition of L2 pronunciation, these issues are discussed within a framework in which mutual intelligibility is the primary concern. Finally, we emphasise the need for more collaboration between researchers and practitioners, so that more classroom-relevant research on pronunciation learning and teaching will be conducted in the future.

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